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Latest China Scam: I’ve Been Arrested in the Brothel Crackdown!

If the sex industry is fastest to seize on new ways to part fools from their money, China’s legions of hackers and text-message swindlers aren’t far behind.

Evidence: A day after authorities launched a massive crackdown on brothels in a dissipated Chinese border town, the country’s Internet came alive with warnings about a scam in which con artists used the police action as the pretext for a desperate and deceptive cry for cash.

“Dad, I’ve been detained while playing around in Dongguan. Please immediately wire 5,000 yuan to Police Officer X’s ICBC account XXXXXX. Don’t call. We’ll talk when I get out. Quickly!” read one suspicious text message that was circulating in the wake of Sunday night’s sweep, according to a report posted on the website of the official Xinhua news agency (in Chinese).

A neon-lit manufacturing hub located across the border from Hong Kong in Guangdong province, Dongguan has long been known as China’s “Sin City,” home to armies of sex workers who serve everyone from migrant workers to executives. It is subject to frequent clean-up campaigns, but the current one garnered widespread attention because it was preceded by a series of controversial investigative reports by state broadcaster China Central Television.

Capitalizing on the hype, digital swindlers were also using the crackdown in fake phishing advertisements for popular e-commerce site Taobao that said an online store had temporarily stopped taking orders because the boss had been apprehended. Users were encouraged to click on an alternate site containing malware, according to Xinhua.

The Xinhua report, circulated widely through official government social media accounts Tuesday, was based on information from Internet-security company Qihoo 360 Technology (in Chinese). Qihoo told Xinhua it had seen a nearly 12% increase in Trojan attacks from porn websites containing “Dongguan” as a keyword on Monday alone.

Chinese text scammers frequently target older people on the assumption they are less savvy, though one of the country’s biggest young movie stars reportedly fell for a similar con in January.

It isn’t clear how many people took the bait this time, though it’s a testament to Dongguan’s reputation that fraudsters thought it would be worthwhile to fish with in the first place. And with authorities announcing Tuesday that they planned to launch a three-month province-wide anti-prostitution campaign (in Chinese), it appears the scammers’ tackle boxes may soon be overflowing.